THE LATE SIR JOHN BENNET LAWES AN APPRECIATION.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIE,—Absolutely unique in his service to the agricultural world was the strong, and strenuous, and yet withal modest, personality who has just passed away from us. There is literally no one to replace our loss, because his position was of his own creation, and it is not fitted to any other. There have been greater chemists no doubt, and men with a some- what fuller knowledge of the practice of the field, but never a man so thorough in his combination of science and practice, without which the best progress in agriculture writ large is impossible. Never a mind of better balance, or a stronger common-sense than his by which to weigh the all-round value of his own discoveries, or those of others. Few services so great have been done by an individual to his country as was the establishment at his own expense (£100,000) of an experi- mental station with completest possible equipment, equip- ment not confined merely to demonstration and bare record, but comprising a large museum in which are stored as much of actual growths upon the plots as is ever likely to be useful in elucidating problems of future as well as present interest,— in preserving, for instance, samples of the barley (with other corn) grown on plots of different treatment, for many years, so that recently they have been analysed, and otherwise used to furnish evidence in determining the best conditions procurable for securing that great desideratum in ordine ry farming, quality of grain. In fact, here at Rotlaamsted was planned the immense variety of simple and elaborate investigations into the laws which underlie phenomena of the field and homestead,—an ever-lengthening list. As these, old and new, were answered others growing out of them were followed up and dealt with, whilst all the time collateral facts and data bearing in any way on the main results were all precisely tabulated. And one man, through at least two generations of his fellows, planned, or helped to plan, the methods of attack, as well as the actual operations, and grasped the main significance to science and to practice of the whole campaign. So that great as was the forethought and the munificence of Sir John's gift, and its endowment to a nation which has not thought it necessary to spend nearly so much as others in this sort of work, the service of the almost always present and controlling eye, and mind, has been much greater. The humblest tenant-farmer, as well as the famous foreign scientist, were welcomed equally —aye, and more than welcomed—at the fine old manor-house. Visitors arriving, before a previous batch just home from a long trudge round with Sir John as the most luminous of guides had finished lunch, would be met by the host with the utmost geniality, and his prompt and apologetic retreat from the table for yet another round, to be in no way hurried or curtailed. Questions by the purelysoientific inquirer, as well as puzzled efforts by the man of much practice and little science but able to anticipate very shrewdly by the eye the decision of the bushel as to yield of the crops, were all answered with the self-same patient thoroughness, as well as with the same ability. No one better than Sir John knew the limitations of abstract science in the matter of the farmer's direct material benefit. Herein, indeed, or hereabouts lay perhaps his greatest strength. He knew how likely was science, divorced from the practical, to bear seed of its own kind only. In the proper conduct of agricultural experiments, as well as in their adequate appreciation as guides to practice, a good deal of practical as well as scientific knowledge is essential. There are, of course, field experiments designed entirely to scientific ends, as well as others to answer questions mainly practical or economic. But even with the former some practical knowledge is almost always necessary, as certain memorable examples of neglecting this principle clearly showed. Sir John Lewes was always more ready, and better able, than any other man to point the practical lessons of scientific discoveries, whether they were of the greatest national concern or of much more limited interest, as many of his writings, to say nothing of his oral lessons, stand to show. Some adequate record of a life so unique and useful will no doubt in time be published. Meanwhile a sketch so slight as this, by one who had the privilege of knowing him a little, may be of passing interest. The writer is merely one amongst those who have received from Sir J. Lawes an amount of kind- ness and assistance in certain matters of public, but very limited public, interest, so out of all proportion to the im- portance of the work as to be almost astounding from a man so very fully occupied as was he. His physical as well as his mental energy was quite extraordinary. He followed his favourite sport of deer-stalking in the Highlands till well over seventy years of age. He could very seldom be induced to ride where and when walking was at all reasonably pos- sible, and in habits he was most abstemious. He was equally kind of heart and genial in manner to men of all classes, and at all times inspired great respect. It is good to think he had the happiness to live and to see so much of the fruit of his very long life and work, as well as its very typical inter- national memorial, a solid slab of lugged Aberdeenshire granite, erected some years ago on an occasion few then present will forget, near the gates of the family home.—I am,
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